The Blizzard of 2011

Holy Blizzard of 2011!

Wow, we have experienced quite a winter this year, and it’s only the beginning of February. This morning will set a record low in Kansas City with a temperature of 12 degrees BELOW zero. I have to say, it is not fun to turn on the car and see a negative number staring back at you. And that’s not the wind-chill temperature; it’s the actual temperature! I don’t even want to know what the wind-chill temperature is if we are already sitting at a negative number. Ok, I take that back. I don’t want to know, but I really do! I just checked The Weather Channel and the wind-chill in our area is around – 25 degrees. O.M.G. Unbelievable! Can we say BRRR COLD!!!

The snow has been pretty remarkable as well. At the beginning of the year, Kansas City had accumulated 2.9 inches of snow. Since then, we have been hit with 4 winter storms and have accumulated nearly 30 inches of snow. It comes as no surprise that the schools have been closed for a ridiculous amount of days (and are already beginning to dig into their summer vacation as they quickly use up their built in snow days), but it was shocking that so many business were forced to send people home early, and even close completely in some cases. This week’s blizzard allowed the corporate world to finally experience the joy and convenience of the beloved “snow day”. My office started sending us home around Noon on Tuesday (and finally closed for good by 1:30 pm) and we didn’t even open until 10:00 am on Wednesday. It was unreal, but completely necessary and I am thankful they value our safety so much that they allow us to get home safe and sound.

I found this satellite view of the US at the beginning of the week, I believe on February 1^st to be exact. Incredible!

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I also found this snowfall report on the NBC Action News Weather Blog and thought it was so crazy. Look at all of the snow we have accumulated from Kansas City and across south-central Missouri in the last 4 days.

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Our Tuesday snow day was a blast! I worked from about 8:00 am until 12:30 pm and headed for home. Caton has the ability to work remotely, so he worked from home all morning and was such a life-saver with our blizzard preparations. He made a run to the store for the necessities (since we didn’t know just how bad it would get) like milk, eggs, some snack and meal items, and windshield wiper fluid for our SUV’s. By the time I made it home from work around 1:15 pm, he was almost done shoveling the driveway and walkway to our front door… in the snowing-freezing-cold-wind-blowing-so-hard-and frigid-that-it-makes-you-lose-your-breath weather. I married such an amazing man! Once he thawed out warmed up, we climbed in the Envoy and made the two minute drive (it’s usually a one minute drive without the snowy road conditions) to The Blue Moose Bar & Grill for a nice warm meal and a few beers. Surprisingly, they were open for business and there were at least 10 other people in the entire place. After a quick meal, we headed home, got in our comfy clothes and claimed our spots on the couch for an afternoon of catching up on How I Met Your Mother, Season 5. We love that show! Later that afternoon, we hopped back in the snow mobile Envoy and made the five minute drive (it’s usually a two point five minute drive without the snowy road conditions) to my parents’ house for snowed-in evening with the fam. My sister, brother-in-law and one of our nephews joined us for an evening of weather-watching, snow-awing, wine-drinking, spaghetti-eating and card-playing. *Side note: have you guys ever played the card gamed called Nerts?! If not, we would highly recommend it. Caton and I learned the game of Christmas break while we were visiting his side of the family in Wichita and it is a BLAST. Check out the directions here. We prefer to play with at least three teams of two, but can play with even more or less teams/individuals than that. This is the second time our family has played and we are hooked. Seriously, so much fun! As a second side note, I just found out that the game has a few other names, including: Pounce, Racing Demon, Peanuts and Squeal. Just talking about it makes me want to play again this weekend!* Anyway, so we had a wonderful and relaxing evening!

On Wednesday morning my office’s emergency weather hot line said the office wasn’t opening until 10:00 am, so I was able to get a few extra hours of sleep before heading in for a full day of work. Caton worked remotely for a second day and was a super-husband again, re-shoveling the driveway and walkway to our house, checking off countless things on our humongous to-do list, and putting on his chef’s hat so that I walked into the house to a fire blazing in the fireplace and an amazing setup of steak (I still don’t know how he was able to dig his way through the snow to grill up our steaks, but they were delicious!), Caesar salad, asparagus and my beloved Cabernet Sauvignon red wine. It was out-of-this-world-good and perfect for a  freezing cold night after a long day of catch-up at work. I am one lucky woman to be married to such an amazing man!

After 4 long days, Kansas City is finally digging its way out of this “snow-mageddon”, as many people are calling it, and getting back in the swing of things. I’ll wrap this up by leaving you with a few pictures of our Winter Wonderland in Prairie Village.

Here is a picture showing just how many miles this storm covered in a few days. All I can say is WOW!

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This last one is a picture that was floating around Facebook and emails the last few days. It brings a good laugh to this bitter-cold week.

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I hope everyone has been able to stay safe and warm. Here's hoping we don't see anymore storms like that for the rest of the year! I was about to say "here's hoping we don't see anymore snow...", but they're already predicting more this weekend, so we won't hold our breath on that one just yet!